MAJOR McCann’s welcome. 
553 
HAJOR McCANN’S WELCOME TO THE U. S. V. M. A. 
Mr. Chairman^ Ladies and Gentlenien of the United States 
Vete 7 'inary Medical Association : 
It is always a pleasure to me to extend the hospitality of 
ny fellow-citizens and the management of the Tennessee Cen- 
ennial and the citizens of the United States, and I assure you 
hat I feel an extraordinary pleasure in welcoming you within 
he confines of our State. 
There is no animal which confers so many blessings upon 
aankind as the horse, and I feel happy because I am permitted 
o address a class of gentlemen whose aim and object in life is 
lot only to relieve his pains, but to release all the penalties to 
v^hich horse-flesh is subjected. 
I have been over fifty years in preparing the mipromptu 
peech which I make you to-day. 
If there is any subject on earth with which I am more fa- 
ailiar than any other, it is the horse. My earliest recollection 
3 closely associated with the “ clothes horse,” upon which I 
ised to hang my clothes when I was a child, and one which 
aved my fingers from many a burning. With what boyish 
elight did I dwell upon my “rocking horse.” He was a 
'goer” ; you bet he was. Like Alexander the Great, I found 
hat my bucephalus was afraid of his shadow ; so I turned his 
Lead to face the sun, and he couldn’t see it. Rarey, the great 
iorse-tamer, wasn’t in it with me. I sobered him down so that 
a less time than it takes lightning to chase a squirrel down a 
lickory tree, he was not even afraid of the Tom cat. Phillip, 
he father, immediately said : “ Seek, my son, another king- 
om ; Macedonia is unworthy to contain thee.” Acting upon 
»arental instructions, I struck a bee line for a neighboring 
tream, where, with dangling line and wriggling red-worm, I 
hrew tempting bait to the red horse, “roped him in,” and 
0011 I found him dangling on my string. 
The next thing was the “ wood horse.” Gee whiz ! How 
sweated and toiled over this fellow ; I had a strong constitu- 
